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11 Successful HR and Work Tech Trends to Adopt

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In recent years, we’ve seen an explosion in new and improved digital tools for HR and work activities. But with the landscape changing so rapidly, how can organizations decide which tech trends deserve serious attention and investment?

For useful advice, we asked HR and business leaders these questions:

What emerging HR or work tech trend is making the biggest impact on your organization? Why is this the case?

In response, we received excellent feedback from a variety of business professionals — from HR Directors to CEOs. And I’m sure you’ll agree as you skim this list, their recommendations make sense for employers everywhere:

  • Simplify Your Tech Stack to Enhance the Employee Experience
  • Enhance Recruitment Success With AI-Driven Hiring
  • Propel Real-Time Feedback With AI
  • Leverage People Analytics for Data-Driven HR Decisions
  • Automate Background Checks to Improve DEI
  • Boost Company Image With Employee Advocacy
  • Adopt AI to Transform HR Processes
  • Personalize the Hiring Experience With Video Interviews
  • Improve Compliance and Decision-Making With AI
  • Tap Into a PEO for Sophisticated HR Services
  • Streamline Repetitive HR Tasks With Automation

To learn more about how these tech trends are redefining organizations large and small, check the responses below…

11 Ways to Benefit From Top HR and Work Tech Trends

1. Simplify Your Tech Stack to Enhance the Employee Experience

One trend we’re tackling is the simplification of our tech stack to enable a seamless employee experience. As a result, we’re being more thoughtful about the systems we choose to enable key programs. Our goal is to offer an intuitive, natural employee journey from hire to retire. We also hope to benefit from improved data and integrations.

In conversations with other HR tech leaders, we’re finding many larger, established organizations that are also facing this issue. For some, shifting to a connected set of systems that matches a connected experience will be a multi-year process.

This can feel like fixing an airplane while in flight. Actually, it is. But when this is done in the right way, you’ll feel the net reward through improved employee productivity, reduced HR technology spending, and the opportunity to influence vendor roadmaps.

Tiffani Murray, Director, HR Tech Partners – Global Talent Organization, LinkedIn

2. Enhance Recruitment Success With AI-Driven Hiring

One of the most impactful HR tech trends our organization has adopted is AI-driven talent acquisition. With streamlined candidate screening and predictive analytics, we’ve reduced turnover rates and increased employee satisfaction.

Recently with the help of AI, we identified a top-notch senior developer that we subsequently hired. This led to a 20% increase in project completion rates and stellar client feedback. Going forward, we expect AI in recruitment to continue accelerating our company’s growth and success.

Vikas Kaushik, CEO, TechAhead

3. Propel Real-Time Feedback With AI

One HR tech trend that has made its way into our organization is an AI-backed app for real-time feedback. From helping us interact “anytime, anywhere,” to customized notifications that ensure we never miss feedback requested or received, this app is strengthening our organization’s feedback culture.

Its most powerful feature is an innovative feedback generator with a simple process that helps individuals produce, amend, and share feedback in less than 2 minutes. It also helps senders and receivers schedule and conduct private one-on-one interactions with end-to-end encryption.

We’re seeing numerous positive outcomes. For example, this ensures feedback focuses on competencies that align with our organization’s vision and values. Also, detailed reporting makes it easy for leaders to track team engagement while helping individuals understand how their contributions advance our feedback culture.

Manvika Jhala, Principal Consultant, Projects, NamanHR

4. Leverage People Analytics for Data-Driven HR Decisions

People analytics is a growing tech trend, and it’s making a notable impact on our organization. With timely access to relevant, useful data, we’re able to make better decisions about our employees. We can thoroughly analyze personnel performance from multiple angles, with insights we would have otherwise missed or misinterpreted.

For example, we used people analytics to make sure our pay structure is fair and equitable across various employee groups, regardless of an individual’s personal background. This has had a positive effect on overall employee morale because people feel their contributions are appreciated and compensated fairly.

Michael Alexis, CEO, teambuilding.com

5. Automate Background Checks to Improve DEI

As a company that provides background checks, automation helps us filter for specific candidate criteria, focus on unique company needs, and avoid bias in the process. This has helped us significantly level up our recruiting and hiring game. We now offer these services to companies that are striving to reach ambitious DEI goals.

Max Wesman, Chief Operating Officer, GoodHire

6. Boost Company Image With Employee Advocacy

Our employee advocacy program is making a big difference at our company. When our satisfied workers speak positively about us online, it elevates our company image.

For instance, when we had a job opening, we asked our people to share the job with their friends and colleagues online. This kind of outreach worked really well. As a result, we hired a great candidate who fit in with our company and immediately started contributing in a meaningful way.

This program also helps us get more customers. People looking to buy our products trust what our workers say about us more than what we say about ourselves. So the employee advocacy program isn’t just about hiring. It also helps our business grow in other ways.

Martin Potocki, CEO, Jobera

7. Adopt AI to Transform HR Processes

Although artificial intelligence is one of today’s hottest tech trends, some employers still aren’t sure what their adoption path should be. However, we are integrating artificial intelligence across multiple HR processes, from recruitment to employee engagement.

For instance, we’ve implemented an AI-powered recruitment tool that streamlines the hiring process. It automates tasks like resume screening and interview scheduling, which saves significant time and reduces bias in the candidate selection process.

This has improved our recruitment results and enhanced the candidate experience, as well. Also, in addition to improving HR operations, AI is helping us make better-informed decisions and improve business outcomes.

Madhurima Halder, Content Manager, Recruit CRM

8. Personalize the Hiring Experience With Video Interviews

Video interviewing is one of today’s biggest HR tech trends. It can provide a more personalized hiring experience that improves the applicant experience and helps employers extend their hiring reach in more inclusive ways.

For example, employers can use video tools to conduct non-traditional interviews with applicants who aren’t able to travel, or who speak languages that aren’t common in the employer’s geographic location.

With platforms that make it easier for skilled people to connect with potential employers, this opens up opportunities beyond traditional face-to-face interviews. It also ensures no candidates are left behind because of geographical or physical limitations.

Julia Kelly, Managing Partner, Rigits

9. Improve Compliance and Decision-Making With AI

Recent technological developments have altered nearly every facet of human resources, from sourcing to performance management. Artificial intelligence is now streamlining administrative duties like reviewing applications and setting up interviews. This not only benefits the company financially but also frees up HR personnel for more important, strategic tasks.

Employment law, health and safety regulations, and data privacy are just a few examples of HR’s responsibilities. By providing consistent, accurate record-keeping and reporting, automated HR processes can help ensure compliance with these critical requirements.

Also, with the help of data and analytics tools in automated solutions, HR professionals and business leaders can make better decisions. For instance, AI is helping HR teams more quickly and easily spot issues with employee absences and turnover.

Aleksandar Ginovski, Career Expert, Resume Expert and Product Manager, Enhancv

10. Tap Into a PEO for Sophisticated HR Services

As a startup executive since 2012, I’ve relied on Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs) as a fairly common fixture in my work life. These organizations make it possible for smaller companies to tap into core HR packages that include payroll, benefits negotiation, and a suite of other HR capabilities.

Working with a PEO is an easy decision if you don’t have sufficient resources or admin staff to deal with HR logistics and other technicalities. So, not surprisingly, the number of PEO providers and levels of service have grown significantly over the years.

In our company’s case, the HR apparatus is much more sophisticated than you would typically expect for a company of our size. This makes it possible for us to offer everyone more and better benefits.

Trevor Ewen, COO, QBench

11. Streamline Repetitive HR Tasks With Automation

Artificial intelligence is making a massive impact on the HR function. AI technology is redefining the human resources department, streamlining many of its work processes.

Today, HR leaders apply AI to a wide range of tasks, so they no longer manually manage functions like payroll, recruitment, onboarding, and performance management. It can help employers find the right talent, identify skill gaps, answer employee questions, analyze survey data, and more.

The most positive and profound impact of AI technology is the automation of repetitive, boring tasks. It saves manual HR labor, while simultaneously improving process efficiency and accuracy. This frees HR team members to focus on more strategic, creative tasks.

Although some organizations are quickly embracing HR automation, it may be more beneficial to adopt it incrementally over time, so teams can adjust and adapt to the change.

Saikat Ghosh, Associate Director of HR and Business, Technource

What Can HR Do to Prevent Insider Threats?

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Every day, businesses contend with all sorts of threats. Like it or not, these risks have become a fact of organizational life in the modern digital world. While some dangers come from external sources — like cybercriminals — insider threats are also surprisingly prevalent. In fact, insiders are the biggest risk some companies face.

Fortunately, many HR teams are stepping up to play a critical role in locating and mitigating these dangers. To learn more about these threats and how HR can help prevent them, read on…

What Are Insider Threats?

Anyone who currently or previously worked for an organization can pose an insider threat. Employees, contractors, business partners, and others can put your company or staff at risk. These instances include intentional and unintentional attacks that are physical or digital in nature (such as cyberattacks).

Organizations are feeling more vulnerable lately, and these concerns are not unfounded. In fact, 60% of companies say they experienced at least one insider threat during the past year.

Why Do Attacks Happen?

Insider threats can develop for various reasons. A member of your workforce may be struggling with a health condition, financial challenges, family issues, or other personal problems. Business changes can also trigger an attack. For instance, organizations are likely to be more exposed during a reorganization, a merger or acquisition, or as the result of staff layoffs.

However, unintentional threats can arise during daily work activities, as well. Often, when people are anxious, fearful, unaware, or distracted, they may not rely on security best practices. This can open the door to phishing attacks or data breaches that inadvertently harm your organization.

For example, in 2019, 885 million personal accounts were compromised when systems at First American Financial Corporation accidentally leaked customer data. Also during that same year, a third-party data breach at WhatsApp exposed 1.5 billion user accounts.

Although insider threats can occur anytime, multiple warning signs usually build up in advance. Behavioral indicators like these deserve attention:

  • Is an individual refusing to participate in mandatory security audits or training activities?
  • Is the individual threatening staff members or your company in social media posts?
  • Do disputes with colleagues and managers occur frequently?
  • Has disciplinary action been required — suspensions, demotions, or removals?
  • Are personal difficulties apparent? (For example, obvious frustration from work stress, financial issues, or other problems.)

Types of Insider Threats

It’s important for HR professionals to know about common types of insider threats. Here are a few scenarios to keep in mind:

  • Workplace Violence
    Any physically aggressive acts or threats that harm on-site employees or company property. This includes intimidation, hazing, assault, or harassment.
  • Property Theft
    When employees or others steal company devices, equipment, data, or materials, especially assets involving proprietary information or national security.
  • Sabotage
    Damaging, destroying, or modifying company property to harm employees, customers, business allies, or the organization overall.
  • Insider Fraud
    When someone changes, removes, or uses company information or systems for self-gain, including insider trading or embezzlement.
  • Accidental Insider Threat
    An unwitting oversight or operational negligence that harms colleagues, customers, or the company. This includes actions that lead to unintended security breaches, phishing attacks, or lost/misplaced confidential information.

5 Ways HR Can Help Prevent Insider Threats

HR can play a key role in preventing these threats throughout every stage in the employee life cycle — including hiring, ongoing performance management, job changes, and offboarding. Here are five ways HR professionals can minimize these issues:

1. Conduct Thorough Background Checks

Smart organizations take every precaution to anticipate and mitigate insider threats from the start. Before extending an offer to any potential employee, conduct an extensive criminal background check and verify the candidate’s resume by calling listed references.

Careful screening can identify past behavior, such as workplace violence, fraud, or criminal actions. If red flags arise, the interview process is a perfect opportunity to clarify and understand the story behind any situation.

2. Implement Mandatory Security Training

Newly hired employees should participate in security training and activities. This helps educate people about cybersecurity risks and gives you a forum to clearly explain company policies and best practices. It’s also an opportunity to reinforce your company’s commitment to security as a top priority.

3. Define a Baseline for Normal Behavior

By working closely with IT leaders to determine standards, you can specify behavior that is normal/acceptable versus abnormal/unacceptable. Establishing this baseline enables your IT teams to monitor network activity, so they can identify potential dangers. When incidents are detected, IT can alert appropriate departments for necessary action.

It’s worth noting that when employees believe policies are overly strict or unfair, they may choose not to comply. This only increases the likelihood of insider threats. To avoid this, be sure you clearly communicate relevant standards and explain why those standards are in place. Also, be transparent about how IT teams monitor behavior, and what kind of actions they consider unacceptable or out-of-the-ordinary.

4. Foster a Supportive Workplace

Employees should feel comfortable and supported at work. A toxic environment where people are regularly embarrassed, belittled, humiliated, or forced to work under excessive rules only increases the potential for insider threats.

Successful workplaces cultivate a culture of trust, respect, and support where employees feel comfortable discussing personal or work issues. In this type of environment, managers and supervisors take discretion seriously.

Employees should know that co-workers with behavioral issues will be helped and not punished. This ensures that everyone will feel more comfortable sharing concerns about others.

For this reason, consider implementing an employee assistance program where anyone who is struggling can receive support and counseling. Make it a priority to help anyone who is at risk, and also address any grievances brought to your attention.

5. Terminate Employees With Respect

When employees depart, it’s vital to make the offboarding process as smooth as possible. Regardless of whether an employee chooses to resign or is terminated, thoughtfully managing the offboarding process can significantly reduce security risks.

If termination is required, proceed with care, so you preserve a sense of dignity. If possible, conduct the termination meeting in a room that lets the employee leave the premises quietly, without public embarrassment or shame.

Also, plan to remove the individual’s access to devices and systems as quickly as possible. In addition, remember to collect all company property and review nondisclosure agreements to avoid any misunderstanding about rules the employee previously agreed to follow.

A Final Word on Avoiding Insider Threats

HR plays a critical role in minimizing exposure to insider threats throughout the lifecycle of every employee. Proper planning, precautions, and proactive communication can make a tremendous difference. Above all, focus on creating and sustaining an environment where employees feel respected, trusted, empowered, and supported.

How to Use ChatGPT as the Ultimate Recruitment Tool

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What is ChatGPT?

It’s no secret — recruiting professionals are still struggling to find strong candidates for job openings. Competition for top talent remains fierce, and skilled workers are in short supply. No wonder many recruiters are turning to innovative tools to identify the right candidates more quickly and efficiently.

One of these tools is ChatGPT. This AI-powered chatbot uses advanced natural language processing techniques to communicate with users in a conversational way. It is trained on a massive dataset of internet text, which makes it proficient at discussing a vast spectrum of topics.

Why Recruiters Like ChatGPT

Why is this tool becoming so popular so quickly? Recruiters recognize it is a groundbreaking solution that can transform the speed and quality of talent acquisition. For example, if you ask ChatGPT about a candidate’s qualifications, experience, and skills, you’ll receive rapid responses that can help you make better-informed decisions.

ChatGPT is particularly useful at addressing the challenges posed by remote and hybrid work. During the pandemic, virtual hiring naturally accelerated. Now, as this trend continues, recruiters are finding that ChatGPT is a convenient solution for communicating with candidates from a distance.

Below, we’ll look closer at several ways employers are leveraging ChatGPT to improve recruitment. Specifically, we’ll cover how to use this powerful tool for:

  • Sourcing
  • Screening
  • Interviewing
  • Candidate Experience

4 Ways to Elevate Recruitment Results with ChatGPT

1) Increasing Sourcing Efficiency

Today’s hiring landscape is particularly complex and competitive. This makes it difficult to find the right candidates at the right time. However, tools like ChatGPT are revolutionizing this process.

One of ChatGPT’s most notable advantages is its ability to create personalized messages. In other words, automation in ChatGPT can help develop communications tailored to each candidate’s unique interests and characteristics. This means recruiters can differentiate themselves in sourcing outreach and increase their response rate.

How it works:

Enter specific information about the position and candidate qualifications. For instance, if you’re looking for a software engineer with experience in Java and Python, enter the job description and a descriptive profile of your ideal candidate. ChatGPT can generate messages that highlight the skills and experience you find most valuable.

Similarly, you can rely on ChatGPT to generate messages for marketing managers, data scientists, front-end developers, or others with specific qualifications. Your messaging can showcase your company’s strengths in these areas and appeal to candidates with relevant experience. Naturally, for best results, you’ll want to provide ChatGPT with the most complete information you’re able to share about your organization, open positions, and candidate qualifications.

ChatGPT isn’t the only AI-powered tool available for recruiters. In fact, you may want to use a tool designed specifically for talent sourcing. For example, Noon AI combines powerful language generation capabilities with data aggregation across LinkedIn, GitHub, and Crunchbase to help employers land the best candidates at a fraction of the typical cost per hire.

2) Improving Candidate Screening

Recruiting talent can be a daunting task, particularly when recruiters must process countless resumes. However, ChatGPT’s natural language processing and machine learning capabilities can dramatically streamline screening tasks. This makes it faster and easier to identify top talent.

One way ChatGPT improves this process is by extracting critical information from resumes. Instead of spending time analyzing each resume for relevant experience and skills, recruiters can input the resume data into ChatGPT. Then they can ask the bot to extract information that is pertinent to specific job requirements.

How it works:

For instance, say you’re looking for people with social media management skills. After you input these requirements into ChatGPT, the AI will highlight relevant experience and skills in a candidate’s resume.

Here are some prompts to help you get started:

  • “Please extract all relevant social media management experience and skills from this resume.”
  • “Can you help me identify any experience or skills related to project management in this candidate’s resume?”
  • “Please extract all relevant experience and skills related to customer service from this resume.”

In addition, ChatGPT can help prioritize candidates by providing AI-generated insights. By analyzing data such as past job performance and social media activity, it can help you quickly determine a candidate’s suitability for a particular role. If a candidate has a successful track record in similar positions, ChatGPT can prioritize them over other candidates with less relevant experience.

Here are some prompts to help you get started:

  • “Based on the candidate’s past job performance, can you provide insight into their potential fit for this role?”
  • “Please prioritize candidates with the most relevant experience for this role, based on your analysis of their resumes and job history.”

3) Enhancing the Interview Process

ChatGPT also significantly improves recruitment by assisting in the initial interview stage. Recruiters can leverage ChatGPT to create customized interview questions that align with each candidate’s experience and skills. This approach guarantees that each interview is more specific and targeted, leading to better-informed hiring decisions.

Here are a few sample prompts to help you get started:

  • “Hi ChatGPT. Can you help me generate interview questions tailored to this candidate’s experience and skills?”
  • “What are some interview questions I can ask to assess this candidate’s proficiency in Python programming?”
  • “Please provide me with interview questions that can help me evaluate a candidate’s communication skills.”

One of the most significant benefits of using ChatGPT for initial interviews is that it automates the evaluation of a candidate’s responses. In other words, it can analyze answer data and provides insights into each person’s strengths and weaknesses. This help you quickly identify which candidates are the best fit for a role.

Here are some example prompts to help you get started:

  • “Can you analyze this candidate’s responses to the interview questions and provide insights into their strengths and weaknesses?”
  • “Please give me an assessment of this candidate’s problem-solving skills, based on their interview responses.”

4) Elevating the Candidate Experience

ChatGPT is a robust tool that not only improves recruitment workflows but also enhances the overall candidate experience. For example, recruiters can automate the process of addressing candidate questions and concerns. This makes responding to inquiries quicker, easier and more reliable. It also helps candidates feel recognized and valued throughout the hiring process.

Here are a few sample prompts to help you get started:

  • “I want to improve candidate satisfaction by offering more transparency throughout the hiring process. ChatGPT, can you generate a message explaining next steps in the hiring process and what candidates can expect?”
  • “ChatGPT, can you help me craft a message to a candidate who wasn’t hired, but might be a good fit for future openings? I want to thank them for their interest and let them know that we’ll keep their resume on file.”
  • “ChatGPT, can you help me create a personalized welcome message for new hires? I want to provide them with information about our company culture, benefits, and onboarding process.”

ChatGPT also makes it possible to provide candidates with a seamless recruitment experience by guiding them through the application process — answering their questions and providing feedback. This reduces the amount of time and effort candidates must put into the application process, which leads to a stronger overall candidate experience.

Here are some sample prompts to help you get started:

  • “Can you help me create an application process that is user-friendly and easy to navigate?”
  • “Please provide candidates with feedback on their application status and next steps in the recruitment process.”
  • “Can you generate a message that expresses gratitude to candidates for their interest and the time they invested in our application process?”

Final Thoughts

In summary, ChatGPT helps bring a new level of efficiency and personalization to recruitment workflows. This kind of AI-driven tool makes it possible to receive and process resumes more rapidly, identify the best candidates with greater confidence, and improve transparency and responsiveness throughout the hiring process.

By making it easier for people to apply for jobs and interact with recruiters, ChatGPT ultimately contributes to stronger hiring decisions, even as it leads to a more engaging and satisfying candidate experience.

Screening Job Candidates Online: Risky Business?

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Sponsored by: Fama.io

It’s no secret. On a daily basis, recruiters and hiring managers are screening job candidates online by simply entering their names in search boxes at Google, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and beyond. Experienced professionals know they shouldn’t be doing this, but many do it anyway. Why?

The Slippery Slope of DIY Candidate Screening

Publicly available online information can reveal a lot about potential employees. It gives employers insight into an individual’s hobbies, interests and personality traits. It also shines a light on controversial opinions, political affiliations and protected class information. 

Gaining unrestricted access to a candidate’s public social media profiles may be easy. But instant access isn’t a free pass to engage in unethical or potentially illegal hiring practices.

That’s why it needs to stop. Screening job candidates without permission is an invasion of their privacy rights — especially the right to consent to the search.

Catching Up With the Rules

To be fair, most recruiters and hiring managers don’t fully understand laws involving online background screening. That’s partially due to the relative novelty of this practice, as well as a lack of updated guidance.

But now that online screening has become so widespread, employers need to know how to protect their organization as well as job candidates. That’s why it’s important to understand the Federal Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA).

Learning how to comply with these regulations is worth an employer’s effort. Online screening can be a powerful tool to determine an individual’s hireability. And when performed correctly, an online background check is an effective and perfectly legal hiring practice. 

How can you make this process work better for your organization? Let’s look closer at key legal aspects of screening job candidates online. First, I’ll explain how problems tend to arise. Then, I’ll suggest steps for a fully compliant, worry-free screening process. 

Understanding the Controversy

Why exactly is social media screening so controversial? Calling it an invasion of privacy is hard to defend, since many social media profiles are publicly available. Furthermore, applicants freely choose what, when and how they share on their social media profiles.

Much of this information may reflect positively or negatively on a candidate’s ability to perform in a work-related capacity. For example, education, work history, extracurricular activities and hobbies are often prominently featured on social media profiles. And employers typically evaluate this kind of information during the interviewing process, anyway.

However, the issue isn’t about employers using information that would otherwise be discussed during a standard interview. Instead, it’s about access to information that organizations are legally and ethically obligated not to consider.

We’re talking about legally protected categories such as race, ethnicity, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability status or religion. This is where issues arise, because the moment anyone views a social media profile, it may inherently reveal details about protected categories.

How Widespread is This Practice?

In a 2018 CareerBuilder survey, 70% of employers said they regularly review social media profiles as part of the hiring process. Furthermore, 54% acknowledged that they’ve rejected applicants based on a social media review.

However, the survey does not indicate how often social media reviews were being conducted by hiring managers who are legally obligated not to consider protected information. 

When used correctly, online screening can highlight positive work traits like compassion or open-mindedness. But it can also reveal negative traits. For example, what if a candidate threatens others in a post or shares a video while committing a violent act? This kind of behavior isn’t welcome in the workplace and would likely hinder the candidate from performing effectively in any role.

Steps to Achieve Better Outcomes

For a fully compliant screening process, consider these best practices:

1. Clarify the Rules

Defining a clear set of guidelines is essential for all background check methods — including online screening processes. According to leading U.S. employment attorney, Pam Devata, “In general, the same rules apply, whether you are using social media or more traditional methods for conducting background checks.”

In a recent interview, Devata explained, “The keys are consistency, accurate record keeping, ensuring that any data accessed is not legally protected information prohibited from being used in employment decisions, and that any decisions are rooted in business necessity.”

2. Focus on Documentation

Before attempting to navigate the nuances of social media screening, it’s important to establish consistent, generalized hiring practices across the organization. This includes putting a process in place to record and track all pre-employment decisions and FCRA-required disclosures.

Although it can be challenging to document online screening activity, consistent, accurate record-keeping will put your organization in a better position to address any issues that may arise. 

3. Partner with a Specialized Service Provider

One of the easiest ways to address the complexities surrounding online candidate research is to rely on a trusted online background screening partner like Fama.

With a proven, independent team managing the screening process, employers can gather only the information needed to assess an applicant’s job potential, without the risk of revealing protected categories. In fact, the strongest digital screening solutions include compliance filters. This ensures that reports shared with hiring teams focus solely on job-relevant information.

At Fama, we go beyond bare-minimum compliance protections by applying ethical AI and machine-learning technology. Also, a team of skilled humans reviews our screenings to ensure their legitimacy and accuracy. This helps us continuously improve our screening capabilities and our results.

Final Thoughts

No doubt, social media screening is bound to remain a controversial topic. But when you’re not sure about the legal implications, it’s important to avoid the false assumption that it’s safe to assess a candidate’s online presence on your own.

Guaranteed compliance is always possible by working with an objective, third-party screening solution. This means your team will benefit from a fully compliant screening process. And ultimately, it means your organization can focus on finding the best candidate for every job.

Is Your Hiring Process Ineffective? Try These Helpful Methods

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What’s the typical order of your hiring process? The common order is usually something like this:

  • Resume screening
  • Interview
  • Assessment
  • Job offer

Your process may not look exactly like this, as some companies have several rounds of interviews and different types of assessments. But if your hiring process generally follows this type of structure, it’s not very effective.

Time Required for Each Hiring Step

Let’s look at a more expanded version of the list above. Consider how much time each step takes, and how much information about a candidate it gives you.

Step Time needed Information received
Resume screening 5 minutes Does the candidate meet the listed requirements?
Phone interview 30 minutes Learn a bit about the candidate and why they applied for the job.
Personality test 15 minutes Find out the candidate’s personality profile.
First interview 1 hour Meet the candidate and learn about their education and previous experience.
Skill and aptitude assessment 30 minutes In-depth info about a candidate’s abilities.
Second interview 2 hours Detailed info about a candidate’s experiences.
Job offer 10 minutes Will the candidate accept the terms?

The time each step takes may vary, of course, so this is just an example. In total, this hiring process takes four hours and 30 minutes of your time. The personality test and skill/aptitude assessments include the time it takes to administer the test and review the results.

Ineffective Hiring Steps

Reading a resume doesn’t take much time, but it also doesn’t give much useful information. You can see if the candidate fulfills the basic requirements, such as skills and experience, but not much else. Candidates will often list their hobbies or personal achievements on their resume, but these are useless unless they’re in some way related to the job. Why does it matter if a candidate loves sailing or is the world champion in arm-wrestling? It doesn’t help you make a hiring decision unless you’re hiring a sailor or an arm-wrestler.

A phone interview lets you ask why they applied for the job and what they expect from the role. It’s also a chance for you to provide more detail about the job and answer the candidate’s questions. It doesn’t take too long, but also doesn’t provide any crucial information.

Personality tests are a quick way to see if a candidate would fit the company culture and be a productive employee. Though there is a lack of evidence for their usefulness. It’s also easy for candidates to lie on personality tests, which they’ll likely do if getting the job depends on it. Therefore the information you get from personality tests is not useful. Considering how unreliable they are, personality tests have no place in the hiring process.

The first interview is usually a typical unstructured interview. You meet the candidate and talk about their experience and achievements. However, you need to filter through a lot of useless information as well. Unstructured interviews are also extremely susceptible to bias. Besides, since they are completely subjective, there is no standardized criteria by which you can accurately compare different candidates. According to one study, unstructured interviews are so inaccurate that they’re counterproductive to your hiring efforts and shouldn’t be used at all.

Effective Hiring Steps

Assessments for aptitude and skill often come after an interview. Skill tests let the candidate directly demonstrate their abilities in a way that you can easily compare to other candidates. Specifically, testing a candidate’s knowledge or skill gives you valuable information that’s critical in making a hiring decision, as job skills are the main criteria for hiring someone.

Aptitude tests are also known as reasoning tests, cognitive tests, or general mental ability tests. They can assess a range of abilities such as problem-solving, abstract thinking, logical reasoning, and others. As these abilities are used in many jobs, candidates who score highly on these tests are promising.

Assessments are relatively easy to administer and don’t require much of your time, at least compared to interviews. While they do take time to create, once you have them in place, the time it takes to administer and review them is relatively short. But, you don’t need to create them yourself. You can use any online pre-employment testing service to do that for you. Thus, saving even more time and making things easier for both you and your candidates.

The second interview round is the opportunity for a structured interview. A structured interview is a type of interview where the questions are prepared in advance. All candidates are asked the same questions, in the same order, and their answers are scored based on predefined criteria. This way you can objectively compare candidates to each other. This step lets candidates provide a lot of detailed information about their experiences, work ethic, professional achievements, and other important data that can help with making a hiring decision.

The Optimal Order of Hiring Methods

Not all methods give equally valuable information, and the time they take varies significantly. So which order should you use them in? To make your hiring process more efficient, you should prioritize the methods which give the most information for the least amount of time and order the hiring process based on these criteria.

To understand which order of hiring methods is optimal, we need to rank them based on how good they are. Fortunately, there is plenty of research that tells us how good each particular hiring method is. Sadly, some of the most common hiring methods, which are widely used, such as resume screening and unstructured interviews, don’t work well. The most effective hiring methods are work-sample tests, aptitude tests, and structured interviews.

Test First…

A work-sample test assesses a candidate’s ability with a sample of actual work. For example, if you’re hiring a programmer, you ask them to write some code. If you were to hire a chef, surely you’d like to know what their food tastes like before you hire them? All things considered, there is no reason not to use this approach with almost any profession.

Aptitude tests assess cognitive abilities such as problem-solving, logical or abstract reasoning, and similar talents. They don’t show if a candidate has the required job knowledge or skills but, according to research, candidates with higher cognitive ability learn more job knowledge, and learn it faster, than those with lower cognitive ability.

Research has consistently shown that work-sample tests and aptitude tests are far more accurate and effective at predicting job performance than almost any other hiring method. Therefore, you should use tests as early as possible in your hiring process, even as the very first step. You can set up your hiring process so that candidates apply by taking the test.

Most candidates will fail a short initial skill test. That may sound bad, but it’s not. Most candidates fail pre-employment skill tests because these tests are designed as elimination tests. By filtering out weaker candidates with a pre-interview skill test, you are narrowing down the selection right from the start of the hiring process. This means that candidates that come to the interview are more qualified than if you had screened them using resumes. In other words, it’s more efficient to test for skills and aptitude before interviewing because testing doesn’t take much of your time but the information you receive from this hiring step is extremely valuable.

… Then Interview

A structured interview requires some preparation in deciding which questions to ask and defining scoring criteria. Once you have it in place, you can see how it’s far more objective than typical unstructured interviews. It’s fair to all candidates since they are all given the same questions and scored based on the same rules. It’s also far better for you, because, since the questions are standardized, you can directly and transparently compare different candidates, which is crucial in making a hiring decision. This approach works for both hard and soft skills, and helps avoid bias.

As a result, structured interviews are almost as accurate and effective as work-sample and aptitude tests. However, they require more time, which is why they should take place after the testing round(s). Testing will filter out weaker candidates, leaving only better-qualified candidates for the interview. Therefore the average time of the interview itself will likely be a bit longer, since more qualified candidates are likely to give more detailed and knowledgeable answers to your questions. But ultimately you’ll need to interview fewer candidates so overall your whole hiring process will take less time.

Conclusion

How you organize your hiring process has a significant impact on how efficient and effective it is. The traditional hiring model has a lot of inefficiencies that can hurt your chances of finding the best candidates.

Ordering your hiring methods optimally, based on data provided by research into hiring methods, not only makes your hiring process more accurate, it also saves a lot of time.

#TChat Recap: Leveraging Social Recruiting Legally

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Leveraging Social Recruiting Legally

Using social recruiting to determine if a candidate is worth investing in is a sensitive process. But it is a modern-day practice being widely used, and it needs to be understood before it is greatly misinterpreted. Finding talent is a tough business, but screening candidates becomes too delicate of a process to simply let content on a candidate’s social profile affect their candidacy. This week, our community was joined by: Jason Morris, Co-Founder, COO and President of EmployeeScreenIQ; and Nick Fishman, Co-Founder, EVP and CMO of EmployeeScreenIQ. Both specialize in helping organizations screen talent efficiently. They taught our community about the value in screening talent, but also how it is vital for every organization to perform it.

The embedding of social media in our DNA has proven to provide constant change to old processes and adaption to new ones in the World of Work. It is what has brought about the usage of screening candidates by checking their social media accounts. But why? What does social media screening teach us? The reality is:

Ultimately, every organization searches for a glimpse into a candidate’s character and his/her skill sets. Evaluating candidates goes beyond reading resumes and checking references. It extends to evaluating the content they post on their social networks. Truth be told:

The trouble with socially screening candidates is that our perceptions can be misleading in the process. Sure, there are some scenarios that showcase why certain selfies or socially shared thoughts should remain unpublished. However, understanding the difference between viewing a family holiday selfie versus a spring break group selfie is about learning how to interpret character.

Simply saying, social recruiting goes by checking social networks. There is a big digital world out there. It’s also about finding an effective means for screening candidates. Find an effective means for screening talent, because investing in people means coming up with the best possible answer for knowing what you’re getting. We cannot forget that:

When it comes to hiring talent it is better to be safe than sorry. Yes, we all know that hiring talent costs money and that there are high turnover rates associated with it. Still, verifying talent is about being strategic. It’s about keeping your organization healthy. When we hire new talent, it changes the chemistry that exists and we must adjust with it. However, we owe it to our current employees to be diligent when it comes to hiring talent. Social recruiting is an alternative means to evaluating talent, but it has to be thoughtful and mindful of all legalities. Hiring talent is a serious business. We must understand what our social recruiting game plan is and what it looks for.

What #TChat-ters Shared About Social Recruiting

What’s Up Next? #TChat Comes Back Next Week! On Wednesday, Dec. 17th!

TChatRadio_logo_020813-300x300#TChat Radio Kicks Off at 7pm ET / 4pm PT — Our weekly live broadcast runs 30 minutes. Usually, #TChat-ters listen in and engage with our Twitter community.

#TChat Twitter Kicks Off at 7:30pm ET/ 4:30pm PT — Our Social Hour midpoint begins and ends with our highly engaging 30 minute Twitter discussion. We enjoy taking a deep social dive into our weekly topic by asking 3 thought adrenalizing questions. So join in on the fun during #TChat and share some of your brain power with us (or tweet us @TalentCulture).

Become A Part Of Our Social Community & Check Out Our Updates! 

The TalentCulture conversation continues daily on Twitter, in our LinkedIn group, and on our Google+ community. Engage with us anytime on our social networks or stay current with trending World of Work topics through our weekly email newsletter. Signing up is just a click away!

Passive-Recruiting

Photo credit: Link Humans via Flickr cc

Dos & Don’ts of Screening Your Candidates Online

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Should employers use social media to screen candidates? A good question without a right answer; it’s a gray area both in the law and company policies, especially because many employers don’t even have a social media policy. However, there are pros and cons to utilizing social media and search engines in the hiring process, and hiring managers want to know—to snoop or not to snoop?

First, let’s take a look at how many in HR say that they use social media in the hiring process. A significant portion of employers do use social media but not for screening job candidates. According to recent data from the Society for Human Resource Management (SHRM), 77 percent of all employers surveyed “are increasingly using social networking sites for recruiting, primarily as a way to attract passive job candidates.” Far fewer employers — just 20 percent — use social sites or online search engines to screen job candidates.

Even with legal dangers overhead, some employers feel that using social media gives them another powerful tool to protect their interests, especially when it comes to hiring the right kinds of people and building an effective workforce. Take a look at these three key legal concerns.

Privacy: Employees and job applicants expect and are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy. State and federal laws, as well as the contractual terms for some social media services, may limit your reach into a prospect’s profile.

Discrimination: Title VII of the Civil Rights Act and state laws prohibit employers from making hiring decisions based on protected class information — information that could be seen inadvertently on a job applicant’s profile.

Accuracy: The Fair Credit Report Act (FCRA) requires maximum possible accuracy in background checks. If you can’t prove something, you shouldn’t use it.

Alongside the risks, there are seven crucial dos and don’ts as you determine whether or not you should be using social media in the hiring process.

  1. Do designate a project owner. Consider putting a knowledgeable, well-trained individual in charge of reviewing and vetting the information found on social sites before turning the information over to the hiring manager.
  2. Don’t ask candidates for passwords. It’s already illegal to request passwords in six states, and 21 additional states are considering similar legislation. Asking for passwords may also damage your company’s reputation (if candidates start spreading the word) and employment brand, making it harder for you to engage and hire top talent.
  3. Do consider FCRA implications.The FTC has been calling out web services for acting as consumer reporting agencies when supplying employers with aggregated social media data for employment. This means that employers who use such sites have to follow Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) procedures and obtain prior written consent from job candidates to conduct a search and also supply them with advance adverse action notices.
  4. Don’t believe everything you read and see online. Verifying the accuracy of information you find online can be extremely difficult, especially in a world of user-generated content, photo-altering software and open networks.
  5. Do beware of TMI (too much information). In fact, be prepared to find more information than you want, need or can use legally. A simple Facebook search could turn up information that, if used against a candidate, could result ina Title VII discrimination claim. Remember, information readily available on a public page (religion or race, for example, gleaned by glancing at a profile picture) is protected class information. And once your hiring manager sees it, you cannot “un-ring the bell.”
  6. Don’t use social media inconsistently. One danger of using social media lies in applying it inconsistently — in other words, conducting an exhaustive social search on one job candidate but doing only a cursory investigation on another. If your internal search practices are scrutinized, inconsistency could lead to legal problems.
  7. Do create a written policy for using social media in the background screening process. Make sure that applicants are not taken by surprise and are made aware of the policy in advance. Work with your attorney to make sure that the policy defines your search parameters, who reviews the results, privacy considerations and what information you are and are not looking for.

About the Author: Nick Fishman co-founded EmployeeScreenIQ in 1999 and serves as the company’s Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President. He will be a guest on the December 10th #TChat Show.

photo credit: faungg’s photo via photopin cc

#TChat Preview: Legally Leverage Social Media In Recruitment

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The TalentCulture #TChat Show will be back live on Wednesday, December 10, 2014, from 7-8 pm ET (4-5 pm PT). The #TChat radio portion runs the first 30 minutes from 7-7:30 pm ET, followed by the #TChat Twitter chat from 7:30-8 pm ET.

Last week we celebrated the four-year anniversary of #TChat and talked about the future of the employee-employer relationship, and this week we’re going to talk about how to legally leverage social media in the recruitment process and more.

Where’s the first place most recruiters go today when screening a candidate? They Google them and more, right? They search for them via social media to see what’s up in the virtual world — even if they don’t admit it (or admit they based hiring decisions on what they find).

The fact is, employers can easily find professional or personal information on a job candidate with just a few clicks. However, alongside that ease come real and rising legal risks that employers must be aware of when researching candidates on a social network or through a search engine.

Join TalentCulture #TChat Show co-creators and hosts Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman as we learn about how to legally leverage social media in the recruitment process with this week’s guests: Jason Morris, Co-Founder, COO and President of EmployeeScreenIQ; and Nick Fishman, Co-Founder, EVP and CMO of EmployeeScreenIQ.

Sneak Peek:

Related Reading:

Meghan M. Biro: How Leaders Hire Top Tech Talent

Angela Preston: Congress Critical Of EEOC’s Policy Towards Background Checks

Debbie Fledderjohann: 4 Common Background Check Restrictions To Watch For When Placing Contractors

Lauren Conners: Cost Of A Bad Hire Vs. Cost Of A Background Check

Kazim Ladimeji: Can Social Media Background Checks Be Trusted?

We hope you’ll join the #TChat conversation this week and share your questions, opinions and ideas with our guest and the TalentCulture Community.

#TChat Events: How To Legally Leverage Social Media In The Recruitment Process

TChatRadio_logo_020813#TChat Radio — Wed, December 10th — 7 pm ET / 4 pm PT Tune in to the #TChat Radio show with our hosts, Meghan M. Biro and Kevin W. Grossman, as they talk with our guests: Jason Morris and Nick Fishman.

Tune in LIVE online Wednesday, December 10th!

#TChat Twitter Chat — Wed, December 10th — 7:30 pm ET / 4:30 pm PT Immediately following the radio show, Meghan, Kevin, Jason and Nick will move to the #TChat Twitter stream, where we’ll continue the discussion with the entire TalentCulture community. Everyone with a Twitter account is invited to participate, as we gather for a dynamic live chat, focused on these related questions:

Q1: What are the pros and cons of screening candidates via social media? #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Q2: What course of action can be taken when finding criminal / inappropriate online activity when screening candidates? #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Q3: Is it always necessary to run background screens for all candidates you want to hire? #TChat (Tweet this Question)

Until the show, we’ll keep the discussion going on the #TChat Twitter feed, our TalentCulture World of Work Community LinkedIn group, and in our new TalentCulture G+ community. So feel free to drop by anytime and share your questions, ideas and opinions. See you there!!

photo credit: toridawnrector via photopin cc

Hiring? Promoting? How to Pick an A Player

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(Editor’s Note: Last week at #TChat Events, the TalentCulture community explored best practices in candidate screening with Chris Mursau, Vice President at Topgrading, and Jean Lynn, VP of HR at Home Instead Senior Care. Afterward, some of our participants expressed interest in learning more about how the Topgrading method works. In response, Chris shared this post.)

Do you have difficulty determining if a job candidate (or existing employee) is an A, B, or C Player? If so, you’re not alone — only companies with highly sophisticated HR methods have perfected that process. However, this article helps by providing an explanation of how Topgrading experts evaluate current and prospective employees. These distinctions offer a measurable way to assess talent and build a winning team.

In many companies, “A Player” refers to someone highly promotable. Topgrading definitions of A, B, and C are different. “A, B, and C” grades refer to current ability, not promotability. However, Topgrading takes a deeper look within the A Player category to assess promotability. Here’s how:

A Player: The top 10% of talent available for a position. In other words, an A Player is among the best in class. “Available” means willing to accept a job offer:

• At the given compensation level
• With bonus and/or stock that corresponding to the position
• In that specific company, with a particular organization culture (e.g. Family friendly? Highly political? Fast paced? Topgraded and growing?)
• In that particular industry
• In that location
• With specific accountability levels and resources, and
• Reports to a specific person (e.g. Positive A Player or negative C Player?)

In other words, if you’re a terrific leader, many more candidates will be “available” to you than a lousy leader.

A Player Potential: Someone who is predicted to achieve A Player status, usually within 6-12 months.

B Player: The next 25% of available talent below the A Player top 10%, given the same A Player criteria listed above. These employees are “okay” or “adequate,” but they’re marginal performers who lack the potential to be high performers and are not as good as others available for the same pay. B Players are unable, despite training and coaching, to rise to A Player status. If they can qualify for a job as an A Player, they should be considered for it.

C Player: The next 35%, below the A Player 10% and B Player 25%, of talent available for a job. C Players are chronic underperformers.

The only acceptable categories are A Player and A Potential. We further categorize A Players by promotability:

A1: Someone who is promotable two levels
A2: Someone who is promotable one level
A3: Someone who is a high performer, but not promotable

Example: The not-promotable store stocker, sales rep, or first-level supervisor who is an A3, is a high performer, an A Player — but just not promotable. These employees are high performers because they achieve their A-Player accountabilities, plus they’re terrific with customers, they’re totally reliable, they achieve excellent results, they’re highly motivated, super honest, and very resourceful at finding ways to be more effective in driving the company mission.

It’s important to value all of your A Players, including the many who are the heart and soul of your company — including the A3s who are terrific, but are just not promotable.

How Do A, B and C Players Differ On Key Competencies?
The following chart is a bit simplistic, because not all A Players are this great on all competencies, and not all C Players are this bad on all competencies. Also note: for management jobs, Topgraders look at 50 competencies — this chart features only 8. However, it provides some insight into the methodology:

Topgrading_Competencies Example

The Best Way to Identify As, Bs and Cs:
If you know the story of Topgrading, you know that this methodology has long been considered one the “secret weapons” Jack Welch used to improve General Electric’s success at picking A Players. In fact, the company’s success rate improved from 25% to well over 90%, using Topgrading to assess candidates for both hire and for promotion.

The methods are similar. Two trained interviewers conduct a tandem Topgrading Interview — and if there are internal candidates for promotion, rather than talking with outside references, the interviewers talk with bosses, peers and subordinates in the company.

It’s important to look for patterns of success. Bottom line, the “magic” of Topgrading comes from understanding how successful a person was in job 1, job 2, job 3, and so on, with the greatest weight given to the most recent jobs.

Summary: Extensive research shows that 75% of people hired or promoted turn out NOT to be A Players or A Potentials. Yet, Topgrading methods regularly achieve 80%+ success. For more real-world understanding of how this approach is applied, see case studies that demonstrate how companies improved from 26% to 85% on average, in hiring and promoting A Players.

Have you used Topgrading or other methods of assessing employee potential? What did you discover in your experience? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments area.

Mursau Bio Photo(About the Author: Chris Mursau is Vice President of Topgrading, Inc. He has been practicing, teaching and consulting with companies and individual managers on how to pack their teams with A Players since 2001. He has conducted over 2,500 in-depth assessments for internal and external candidates, helped hundreds of people achiever their A potential, and trained thousands of people in all things Topgrading.)

(Also Note: To discuss World of Work topics like this with the TalentCulture community, join our online #TChat Events each Wednesday, from 6:30-8pm ET. Everyone is welcome at events, or join our ongoing Twitter and G+ conversation anytime. Learn more…)

Image Credit: Stock.xchng

Recruiters: What's Your Behavioral Interviewing Strategy?

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Written by Deepa Barve

Behavioral interviews are increasingly popular as the “in” thing in in recruitment techniques.

These days, you’ll find tons of online resources that share all sorts of advice for candidates about how to ace a behavioral interview. Yet oddly enough, recruiters often only receive a simple template with a list of standard “behavioral questions.”

But here’s the catch for recruiters: What you do with the interview answers is far more important than the questions, themselves.

Make The Most of Behavioral Interviewing

To get more value from every interview session, keep these three tips in mind:

1) If at first the answer doesn’t succeed, ask, ask again

Behavioral interviewing is based on the belief that past behavior is a predictor of future performance. The keywords here are “past behavior.” Too often, candidates have a tendency to respond to questions hypothetically. But that only tells you what they think they would do (or think you want them to do) in a particular situation. It’s not what they’ve actually done in a similar situation.

If candidates can’t think of a past example, broaden the parameters of the question. Suggest they provide an example from their personal life instead of a professional example. You could also try rewording or paraphrasing the question to help stumped candidates respond appropriately.

2) Know your ideal answer before you ask the question

Interpreting responses to behavioral questions can be tricky. These questions are typically multidimensional, so the answers can be complex and misleading. Some candidates are also adept at this sort of interviewing, and have practiced the art of sounding eloquent while avoiding an authentic, relevant answer.

Each specific behavioral question is typically meant to assess a particular skill. Having a good idea of what you’d like to hear (similar to creating an ideal performance profile) will help you hone in on the competency or skills you’re assessing.

For example, consider the question, “Tell me about a time when you’ve failed at work.” Answers may range from “I’ve never failed” to some version of, “I’m human and I’ve made many mistakes.” Candidates may describe a mistake with negligible impact or reveal details of a huge blunder.

Ultimately, the actual mistakes they made don’t matter. But how they reply does.

The ideal response should include three components: 1) details of the mistake, 2) remedial action they initiated to correct it, and 3) steps they took to prevent it from happening again. The third element — the “applied learning” component — is most important. Very few candidates actually cover the second or third aspects of an answer, unless they’re prompted.

3) Dig deep to make this conversation really count

Prior to an interview, you’ve probably sifted through volumes of resumes and profiles to find a few candidates worth getting to know. You might have also invested time in intermediary steps such as phone screens to create a short list of candidates that seem worthy of a behavioral interview. So make every moment count. Ask follow-up questions to probe deeper. And ask clarifying questions to understand the context surrounding a candidate’s examples.

Be curious, but don’t interrogate. Make it a conversation. Assure them there are no right or wrong answers. Some answers may not impact a hiring decision, but may simply indicate areas where training or coaching are required. Don’t jump to conclusions. Instead, seek complete and accurate information that can ultimately inform your hiring decisions.

Above all, aim to disarm job candidates. After all, you’re trying to get a glimpse of how they behave outside the interview setting. If you’re committed to finding the right talent this way, then it’s worth conducting these interviews right.

Your Turn

What are your thoughts? Have you tried any of these three behavioral interview techniques? What else do you recommend?

Deepa-Barve1(About the Author: Deepa Barve is Sr. Recruitment Leader at SSOE Group, an architectural and engineering consulting firm. Deepa has more than seven years of recruiting experience in engineering, healthcare and hospitality. Her career advice articles are also featured at www.examiner.com.)

(Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Brazen Life, with permission. Brazen Life is a lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals. Hosted by Brazen Careerist, it offers edgy and fun ideas for navigating the changing world of work. Be Brazen!)

(Also Note: To discuss World of Work topics like this with others in the TalentCulture community, join our online #TChat Events every Wednesday, from 6:30-8pm ET. Everyone is welcome at events, or join our ongoing Twitter conversation anytime. Learn more…)


Image Credit: Stock.xchng

Recruiters: What’s Your Behavioral Interviewing Strategy?

/5 Comments/ /by

Written by Deepa Barve

Behavioral interviews are increasingly popular as the “in” thing in in recruitment techniques.

These days, you’ll find tons of online resources that share all sorts of advice for candidates about how to ace a behavioral interview. Yet oddly enough, recruiters often only receive a simple template with a list of standard “behavioral questions.”

But here’s the catch for recruiters: What you do with the interview answers is far more important than the questions, themselves.

Make The Most of Behavioral Interviewing

To get more value from every interview session, keep these three tips in mind:

1) If at first the answer doesn’t succeed, ask, ask again

Behavioral interviewing is based on the belief that past behavior is a predictor of future performance. The keywords here are “past behavior.” Too often, candidates have a tendency to respond to questions hypothetically. But that only tells you what they think they would do (or think you want them to do) in a particular situation. It’s not what they’ve actually done in a similar situation.

If candidates can’t think of a past example, broaden the parameters of the question. Suggest they provide an example from their personal life instead of a professional example. You could also try rewording or paraphrasing the question to help stumped candidates respond appropriately.

2) Know your ideal answer before you ask the question

Interpreting responses to behavioral questions can be tricky. These questions are typically multidimensional, so the answers can be complex and misleading. Some candidates are also adept at this sort of interviewing, and have practiced the art of sounding eloquent while avoiding an authentic, relevant answer.

Each specific behavioral question is typically meant to assess a particular skill. Having a good idea of what you’d like to hear (similar to creating an ideal performance profile) will help you hone in on the competency or skills you’re assessing.

For example, consider the question, “Tell me about a time when you’ve failed at work.” Answers may range from “I’ve never failed” to some version of, “I’m human and I’ve made many mistakes.” Candidates may describe a mistake with negligible impact or reveal details of a huge blunder.

Ultimately, the actual mistakes they made don’t matter. But how they reply does.

The ideal response should include three components: 1) details of the mistake, 2) remedial action they initiated to correct it, and 3) steps they took to prevent it from happening again. The third element — the “applied learning” component — is most important. Very few candidates actually cover the second or third aspects of an answer, unless they’re prompted.

3) Dig deep to make this conversation really count

Prior to an interview, you’ve probably sifted through volumes of resumes and profiles to find a few candidates worth getting to know. You might have also invested time in intermediary steps such as phone screens to create a short list of candidates that seem worthy of a behavioral interview. So make every moment count. Ask follow-up questions to probe deeper. And ask clarifying questions to understand the context surrounding a candidate’s examples.

Be curious, but don’t interrogate. Make it a conversation. Assure them there are no right or wrong answers. Some answers may not impact a hiring decision, but may simply indicate areas where training or coaching are required. Don’t jump to conclusions. Instead, seek complete and accurate information that can ultimately inform your hiring decisions.

Above all, aim to disarm job candidates. After all, you’re trying to get a glimpse of how they behave outside the interview setting. If you’re committed to finding the right talent this way, then it’s worth conducting these interviews right.

Your Turn

What are your thoughts? Have you tried any of these three behavioral interview techniques? What else do you recommend?

Deepa-Barve1(About the Author: Deepa Barve is Sr. Recruitment Leader at SSOE Group, an architectural and engineering consulting firm. Deepa has more than seven years of recruiting experience in engineering, healthcare and hospitality. Her career advice articles are also featured at www.examiner.com.)

(Editor’s Note: This post is adapted from Brazen Life, with permission. Brazen Life is a lifestyle and career blog for ambitious young professionals. Hosted by Brazen Careerist, it offers edgy and fun ideas for navigating the changing world of work. Be Brazen!)

(Also Note: To discuss World of Work topics like this with others in the TalentCulture community, join our online #TChat Events every Wednesday, from 6:30-8pm ET. Everyone is welcome at events, or join our ongoing Twitter conversation anytime. Learn more…)


Image Credit: Stock.xchng